


Unintentional Things

by rageprufrock



Category: Smallville
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-11
Updated: 2011-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-23 15:58:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helen understands Lex, better than most of the people in Smallville ever will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Helen understands Lex, better than most of the people in Smallville ever will.

They come from the same world, the same primordial soup of expensive champagne and  
designer originals, of Christmas parties wherein you spent most of the time talking business or  
cheating on your significant other, where being gay is sometimes just another tool. Helen  
remembers galas that the Luthor's used to throw in Metropolis, and flashes of pale porcelain  
skin that she watched with mild fascination, years younger than herself, and already working the  
room better than her father seemed to be. Dr. Bryce was well-loved in Metropolis for making  
folds and unpleasant things disappear, and Helen was invited because she was.

Helen _knows_ Lex, knows him in the way that only people who fought in two different wars  
can see each other across the room and _know_.

Her first real memories of him aren't...pleasant. If they ever get married and have kids, she's  
going to have to lie to them. "Your father? Well, there was this party, down on Amsterdam  
(yes, Timmy, the warehouse district where everyone has sex with everyone else while snorting  
things), and he came in and threw up all over Mommy's cheap shoes. What? No, I don't think  
you should tell your teacher that. Why? Well, child services, for one."

It's about to get incredibly complicated.

"Lex," she starts, and she doesn't know _why_ she says it. It's practically wasted air.

She knows that she is going to say yes.

He just smiles at her, the sweet, silky way that he does when he's pretending that he has to fight  
for something. "Helen. Do this."

Well, of fucking course she will, because it's _Lex Luthor_ and Jesus, that's almost as rare as  
Johns Hopkins.

And Lex knows this. Knows she won't say "No, Lex. Pure research is the _only_ love in my  
life." No, Lex rarely does things unless he already knows the outcome, anyway, and Helen feels  
a little bit... _played_.

And for Christ's sake, she's never been good at saying no to him. "Helen, stay for desert, I  
want to talk to you." Okay. She doesn't remember what they talked about, only that she was  
groggy for her morning shift and every time she smells coffee and chocolate for the rest of her  
life, she'll think about the exact color blue of Lex's eyes. "Helen, wait." Okay. She doesn't  
remember why she decided to other than it was Lex, and she knows this is going to end badly  
but Lex seems to make crashing and burning romantic. "Helen, stay tonight." Okay. She  
doesn't remember how they got from the den to the bedroom but she remembers waking up  
pillowed on his shoulder, ensconced in pale gray sheets. She remembers feeling inordinately  
loved. She remembers being scared, because of the bigness of everything, and how small Lex  
made her feel against the largeness of his insistence. "Helen," he will always ask, and she will  
always say "Okay."

He presses one slender hand to her cheek, and she tilts up to look at him, see beauty up close.  
"Helen, stay with me," he asks.

"Okay," she says, and smiles because it's automatic, grief becoming joy out of lack of options  
otherwise.

Oh, she knows that this is all wrong, terribly so, because she knows things that even Lex doesn't  
know about himself.

She wonders if Lex knows about Clark, knows all the things that the microscope whispered and  
screamed and implied.

She is starting to think that there are more interesting things in Smallville than at Johns Hopkins.

* * *

But the point is that he kisses her sweetly, like he really means it. Or maybe he thinks he does.

The lines have gotten confusing now, so blurred she can barely make out where they used to be.  
Lex is like some sort of incredibly well dressed Hamlet, sauntering down along the river Congo  
toward the heart of darkness and whistling a jaunty tune; Lex is all of British literature, twisted  
together like flaming wreckage, with a splash of one-of-a-kind cologne, formulated by someone  
sexually ambiguous from Milan. Lex is confusingly out of place everywhere.

Helen finds herself thinking about this a lot in between obsessing over Clark's lab results.

"That's hideous, Helen," Lex tells her.

She frowns at him, crossing her arms over her chest. " _You_ asked _me_ to move in," she  
points out.

He brushes it off with a wave of his hand. "You can't keep using that as leverage. That thing,"  
he says, pointing at the painting, "is awful."

"I like it," she says, just to be contrary.

"Where did you get it, the flea market?" Lex guesses.

Helen grits her teeth and digs her heels in. This is a test. "Yes. Is that a problem?"

Lex gives her a look, like he is genuinely distressed. He doesn't know what to do with it. This  
is not a Monet, and Helen is not keeping it because she painted it or a patient gave it to her or  
any of a thousand priceless/sentimental reasons that Lex knows how to handle. This is ordinary  
whim, something Lex doesn't do well. It is one of the long-term side effects of living by himself  
with an obscene spending limit for too many years.

He frowns, wrinkles his brow, and tries again. "What do you _like_ about it, anyway?"

She looks at the painting: two small children, holding hands and walking across a pumpkin patch.  
She can admit it, it's gauche. It looked better over her couch in her own modest little apartment.  
In Lex's second-floor den, set across dark paneling, the bleached-wood frame of it is  
remarkably ugly, tacky, tasteless. She hates it almost as much as Lex looks like he does  
suddenly. It doesn't fit. She wants everything to fit.

"Never mind," she says with a sigh. "You're right. It doesn't... It's not very pretty."

Lex looks distressed again. "You can keep it," he tells her quickly. "If you want." He looks at  
it critically. "We can have it reframed."

She laughs, light and real. "It's not worth it. Your frame would cost more than the painting."

"Not more than your happiness," Lex says smoothly, a bass smile on his face, "not that I'd try to  
buy that."

Helen smiles, and feels more doomed by the second. She can't make herself care. "Of course  
not."

She wonders if she stayed for any of the right reasons, but then Lex kisses her knuckles and  
asks if she's hungry.

They have dinner and dance in the ballroom that Lex has never used before that day.

* * *

He's not a morning person, and she's finding this out in strokes. In mumbles that may or may  
not mean that he is looking for coffee. In thumping noises that may or may not be Lex slamming  
into walls. In muffled yells that may or may not be Lex cursing in the shower. In the way that  
he eats breakfast in whatever he pulls off the floor from the night before and glares at everyone  
who walks in or out the doors before eight o'clock.

Helen wants to take photographs, develop them and leave them in her locker at work.

He is showing her everything about himself, and that is big. Maybe it all means something after  
all. Maybe there was never any line.

People shouldn't call Lex before nine in the morning, but they do anyway, and Helen feels kind  
of bad for them. But then again, it's the fourth day she's lived here, and she's already seen Lex  
do this three times, once for every morning they've had together without the joys of one-night  
post-coital bliss. Bliss seems different and less shiny if it's the gift that keeps on giving, she's  
finding. Bliss shifts into comfort. Bliss is interrupted by people from the plant, or Metropolis, at  
seven thirty in the morning.

"Those projections are wrong," Lex says, stirring cream into a cup of coffee with more vigilance  
than necessary.

Helen smiles, and watches him. Lex is almost as vain as he seems, so she's never going to tell  
him how beautiful he really is.

He frowns, and throws the coffee spoon in the sink before stalking back to the counter, the  
phone still pressed to his ear. "Well, no, Gabe, I haven't."

Helen hides her grin behind a cup of coffee and pretends that she's not watching him as Lex's  
blue eyes look up, narrowed in suspicion.

"My father, despite his tendency toward inducing an inconsolable urge for homicide in the  
general public, is _not_ an imbecile, and the only way that Lexcorp's projections could have  
ever drifted to that level of depression is if an imbecile was handling them. Are you insulting my  
bloodline, Gabe?" Lex asks dangerously.

Helen rolls her eyes and eats a piece of toast. Lex insults his bloodline all the time. It's like a  
hobby.

"I _thought_ so," Lex says, fumbling blindly around the breakfast counter for something until he  
reaches her hand.

Lex blinks, like she's not supposed to be there, and she can't hide the thread of terror that  
weaves its way into her sleep-fogged mind. Johns Hopkins suddenly looks so much friendlier.

He pauses for a moment, blinks a few times more, before smiling slowly, drawing her close, and  
kissing her on the forehead. "Morning, Helen," he says.

"Okay," she murmurs. "Good morning, Lex."

She can get used to this.

* * *

Lex makes her happy, and this is a foreign concept to her.

She has always had romantic ideas about shaping Lex into a more perfect human being, fixing all  
the cracks in him so that he could feel Love. It seems bizarre that he would do that for her  
when she's not the one who was raised as the Poor Little Rich Boy. Helen thinks there's  
something seriously wrong with this relationship; all of her preconceived notions are being  
shattered left and right and she's not okay with that.

They have a routine now, and it's thrilling, this banality. It's what every girl _really_ dreams  
about: someone she can be ugly in front of. This morning, she went to breakfast without any  
makeup on and watched Lex yell at the coffee maker in three different languages she didn't  
know he spoke. "Where's the cook?" she asked. Lex said something about a religious holiday.  
"In February?" she asked. Lex smiled vaguely. "Okay," she said. Then they both sat down  
and split the newspaper until the coffee perked.

"I have tonight off," she says, tapping her pen against the desk. She is staring at Clark's test  
results again.

Lex makes a humming noise, and sounds far away because he's on speakerphone.  
"Unfortunately, I don't. Meeting with shareholders."

She smiles, and almost forgets about impossible cellular structure for a moment. "You sound  
thrilled about it."

"Oh, absolutely," Lex mutters. "The monthly bend over and grab your ankles and who the fuck  
needs _lube_ anyway session is always great for kicks."

"Too much information, Lex," she tells him, but she's smiling. This is better than Johns Hopkins.

He sighs. "I'm actually not going to be in tonight. I'm heading straight toward Metropolis after I  
finish up here." He pauses. "Clark's dropping the groceries by tonight."

She resists the urge to drive out to the Kent farm and hold them hostage until they tell her  
everything on a daily basis. Barely. Clark's coming to _her_?

"Oh," she says oddly. The pen taps against her desk more quickly.

Lex hums again. "Yes. Their check's in my office. He always forgets unless you remind him."  
Pause. "Oh, right, and ask him about his test."

"What test?" she asks idly, flipping through a few patients' files she's going to pretend to look at  
instead of obsessing. Lex is not helping.

Lex chuckles. "Trig. He's terrible. I'd give him moral support but it's kind of funny to see him  
fail miserably."

Helen files this away. A possible hereditary trait for Clark's kind?

Helen insists to herself that it isn't professional to be that bloodthirsty for information, but that's a  
goddamn lie.

* * *

Clark is scared of her, and that much she gets very clearly.

"Dr. Bryce!" he says, green eyes big.

He's standing in the kitchen, writing a note in big, messy handwriting. There's a crate of organic  
vegetables near his elbow. Clark looks terribly out of place against all the sleek metal  
appliances in his cheap blue jacket and primary-colored clothes, but he fits, in a strange way  
that makes Helen very uncomfortable.

She smiles at him, tries not to show any teeth. "Hi, Clark."

He looks nervous and tucks the pen back into a drawer she didn't know Lex kept pens. Lex  
doesn't need pens in the kitchen. Maybe it's the cook's. Clark smiles at her, and the expression  
wavers on his face and in his eyes before he says, "So."

She laughs. It sounds really inappropriate, but she sets her purse down on the counter and  
settles in a stool. "Clark, I'm not...I'm not going to tell anyone anything."

He looks at her with barely-veiled suspicion. "Not even Lex?"

"Not even Lex," she says smoothly. "Doctor-patient confidentiality, you know."

His shoulders loosen, just a bit, and Clark smiles at her, real now. "Oh." Pause. "Are you  
getting used to the castle?"

She shrugs. Why are your cell walls composed of things I've never studied in chemistry, her  
brain screams. "It's nice, if drafty."

"It gets better," he assures her. "Like, around March. It starts getting really beautiful around  
here, like a big English garden." Clark grins. "Lex _hates_ it."

She raises an eyebrow. There's something wrong with this picture. She'll figure out what in a  
second. How come your plasma is freaky?

"Lex hates beautiful?" she asks.

"Lex is _allergic_ to the beautiful," Clark says. "Don't tell him I'm telling you this, but it's pretty  
funny. He gets really groggy from the allergy medicine." Clark smiles at her and his green eyes  
shine. "You get _lots_ of dirt on him during spring."

He tucks the note onto the refrigerator door with a magnet. It reads: "I'm taping L&O:SVU for  
you. Meeting go well?"

Helen blinks. Twice. But doesn't say anything because she doesn't know what to say anymore.  
Something is terribly wrong, and she can't quite put her finger on what, exactly. She knows it  
has something to do with this exact moment, this exact span of time, where she is in relation to  
the universe. The Something Wrong has something to do with Clark, and nothing to do with his  
biology, which is pretty fucked up considering his mitochondria.

"I - " Clark starts, pauses, and tries again. "I think you guys are really good together," he finally  
manages.

Helen smiles. This makes her feel good. Verification: paging Dr. Bryce, you're in a functioning  
relationship. "Yeah?" she says.

Clark smiles as big as the Kansas sky. "Yeah! I mean, Lex is happy around you, and that  
should happen more," Clark says cheerfully.

She laughs, and it's not so inappropriate this time. "Well, thank you, Clark."

His face gets serious in an instant though. "Dr. Bryce?"

"Yes, Clark?" she says.

This is all so surreal. Her logical reasoning skills are totally defunct. She can't figure out what's  
so wrong. But it's big. It's _huge_.

"Lex is my best friend," Clark says, solemn.

He looks like a judge. She's not going to laugh and scream and ask why he doesn't have a  
blood type.

She nods, instead. "I know, Clark."

"Yeah, I know you know but," Clark pauses, frowning. Like he wants to say something but  
can't really. "Be nice to him."

Helen blinks. She's doing that _a lot_. "I thought that was a forgone conclusion, Clark," she  
says.

He frowns at her: there's real fire behind that look. "I'm serious, Dr. Bryce."

"I _am_ nice to him, Clark," she assures him. Does this boy know he's only sixteen? Or that  
he's probably the greatest scientific find in the history of time, space, and distance? "I'm very  
nice."

He warms up to her again. "Good. I'm holding you to that."

There's a long silence before she remembers. "Oh! Your check," she says. "Hold on just a  
second."

She's about to go until she realizes she doesn't know where Lex keeps his checkbook in his  
office. Lex's office is as big as her old apartment, and less touchable. He has a special filing  
system that involves no other mortal beings touching it unless they want to see him throw a fit.  
She bites her lip; maybe she can call, or Clark can just drop by tomorrow.

Clark says, "Oh, the check!" He blushes. "I _always_ forget." He says it like it's some big  
secret. "I can get it."

She nods, and follows him out of the kitchen, through some side doors, and down a hallway  
she's never seen before. It emerges into a desolate little corner and Clark opens one of the  
desolate little doors and they are suddenly in Lex's office. The castle is big, and cavernous, and  
some really sick bastard must have designed it, Helen reflects, as she watches Clark sift  
carefully through the things in Lex's desk until he finds the black checkbook. He opens it, tears  
out the first check, and stares at it for a second before blushing to the tips of his ears and  
whispering, "Lex, you creep."

She raises her eyebrows. "What? Did he short-change you?"

Clark rolls his eyes and shows her the check. "Hardly."

Under the "Note" line, it reads: "Triangles have 181 degrees, Clark. I swear."

* * *

Helen is starting to add to her repertoire of facts about Lex.

Lex has a really unhealthy and totally monogamous relationship with his "Warrior Angel" comics  
that precludes sexual love.

Lex has a really unhealthy and totally monogamous relationship with his cars that does _not_.

Lex doesn't like having a household staff but doesn't know how to do things like launder his  
own clothes. However, Lex won't let anyone else touch his bathroom, and watching Lex  
Luthor clean his sink while brainstorming business strategy is probably one of the funniest things  
she's ever seen.

Also, as much as Lex thinks Smallville hates him, the under eighteen population seems to think  
he's God. It's always Lex this, Lex that, Lex's new car and damn it, I don't care if he's bald,  
he's so much hotter than any of the guys at school. A large part of the conversation tends to  
revolve around Clark Kent and his little group of friends, who don't talk about any of the things  
that the rest of Smallville does in relation to Lex, but seem to talk about him a lot without saying  
Lex's name at all. Helen doesn't exactly know how to look at this, and only knows the bare  
bones details of the reasons why: "Clark was the first person to be kind to me in Smallville,  
Helen," Lex explained. "He's a great guy."

"Guy," not kid. Helen thinks she should be worried about that.

But it's a Tuesday afternoon and she's leaving work early, so she can't be bothered.

She crosses the threshold at four o'clock and as she gets closer to den, she hears familiar voices.

" - is she?"

"She's doing much better. Thanks for all the stuff you sent over. Mom says Burts Bees is like,  
"I love you" now."

There's a short chuckle. "'Like, "I love you."' Wow, Clark. Tell me, when I pay my property  
taxes, do they just _flush_ the money immediately, or do they let it ferment in a moldy room for  
a few days before setting it all on fire?"

The sound of wood cracking, sliding across felt. "One day, Lex, someone's going to call you on  
what a huge jackass you are."

" _Me_? I'm adorable, Clark."

It's just an average conversation, but it's one she thinks for some reason that she shouldn't have  
to be jealous of.

There's no reason to try and figure out who's talking, or who is saying what, since Lex and  
Clark are so bright and shining against one another it's impossible to confuse them for anyone  
else while in one another's company. It's like social distillation: all the things that make Lex  
 _Lex_ are concentrated, slapped side by side against Clark's most essential pieces, and they  
just bounce, like complimentary colors, off of one another: red and green, brightening one  
another. Helen remembers that purple and yellow are kind of garish, so is blue and orange, and  
red and green should be.

Clark and Lex are not garish.

Their voices slide against one another's like silk on satin.

"Yeah, sure. You have a lot of sociopathic tendencies, Lex."

"You don't even know what that word _means_ , Clark." Crack of a pool cue. "How're those  
SAT lists coming?"

" _Grudgingly_ ," Clark says pointedly. "I'm finding that I'm not nearly as eloquent as I previously  
thought, not to mention not as _loquacious_."

Long, meaningful silence.

"Don't look at me like that, Lex."

More silence.

"Okay, look. My English teacher says that incorporating SAT words into my vocabulary is the  
best way to - Lex! Stop - ! You are such a jerk!"

And then she hears it: Lex laughing low and careless, like there's nothing there to hide. Nothing  
at all.

"I'm leaving now," Clark says.

He so is not, Helen thinks.

Lex is still laughing. She knows instinctively that if Lex is laughing, Clark will never walk away.  
She wouldn't.

"I _hate_ you - Lex, stop it!" Clark whines. "God, you - I'm going to tell Helen you're mean to  
me."

"Oh, like she cares," Lex manages between laughs.

There's another long silence, and this one isn't nearly as casual. "So. You guys are serious,  
huh?"

A pause, and Helen holds her breath. She doesn't know why what Lex tells Clark matters  
more than what Lex tells her, but it does. That's always been true, she realizes suddenly, and  
it'll never change. If Lex drops to his knees tonight and asks her to marry him, if they move  
away, he will still call Clark every week and they will still talk about everything that Helen talks  
to Lex about, but on a different level, and it will all matter more than what Lex told to her. It's  
been truth so long that she simply accepted it, she finds, like she accepts other things about Lex  
and Clark without ever thinking about it.

There's a phrase forming in her mind, but she can't quite give it tangible syllables.

"Pretty serious, Clark," Lex says. "She _is_ living here."

Clark doesn't say anything, just makes a noise of agreement. "I like her. She seems nice."

"She _is_ nice, Clark. You should talk to her more," Lex says, and Helen breathes a sigh of  
relief.

Because she's found over time that if Lex says it to Clark, then Lex actually means it.

It figures that Lex needs the most biologically anomalous person in the universe to get along with.  
Poetic justice. Or something.

She doesn't know what any of this really means.

* * *

March, everything goes to hell in a bad way.

Lex is in Metropolis, and fourteen hundred reporters are digging through her past. They are  
saying ugly things. Her ex-boyfriend is staying ugly things, and Lionel is watching ringside like  
it's some sort of game. She's been fixated by Entertainment Tonight for about a week, and Lex  
finally gave up trying to distract her. "I have to go to Metropolis, Helen," he tells her, genuinely  
worried. "You can't - you can't just _watch_ the shit the whole time, do you understand this?"  
She nodded. "You're a doctor, Helen. Focus and go save someone."

Yeah, right.

She takes three days off and sits around the mansion, torturing herself.

She hears knocking, and looks away from the television to see Clark stepping into the room.

"Clark," she says, voice level. Look, is there a reason I bet your DNA isn't double-helixed?

He smiles at her kindly. "Hi, Dr. Bryce."

"It's not grocery day," she says. Just one urine sample, Clark. Just one.

He looks rueful at that. "I know." He looks around the room, pauses, and says, "Dr. Bryce?"

"Yeah, Clark?"

He walks across the room and turns off the television, standing in front of it and looking down at  
her with a worried expression on his face. "Lex sent me. To check on you." Clark frowns, real  
and earnest. "He's really worried. You can't just...sit here and drive yourself nuts over this."

She raises one eyebrow at him. "So I should ignore the fact that the entire Midwestern press  
corps is destroying my reputation?"

Clark winces, pauses, and says, "Well, Lex does. Every day." She stares at him until he says,  
"Look, Dr. Bryce, he's worried, all right? He's killing himself that this is happening to you the  
more you do this, the more it hurts him." He frowns at her seriously now. "You said you were  
going to be nice."

This isn't actually happening, you see, because Helen Bryce does not get bossed around, guilttripped,  
or lectured by pubescent boys from Kansas. In fact, there are a lot of things that Helen  
Bryce doesn't do, and one of them involves sitting around on a sofa in the bedroom of her livein  
boyfriend of a month and destroy herself day after day over what the press is saying about  
her. Sometimes, Helen Bryce really hates Lex Luthor; some days, Helen Bryce thinks none of  
this is actually happening, because, you know, it's not like she ran over God's _dog_ or anything  
like that.

She sighs and leans back against the couch. "I didn't know it was going to be like this." How  
about you console me by letting me run tests?

Clark laughs softly and sits down next to her, on the other end of the couch. "Well. Lex is full  
of surprises."

Helen looks to the side, and sees Clark's profile against the dying afternoon light. His eyes are  
far away, and his mouth is set in a line. He looks like he's over thinking something, like he's  
brooding. It doesn't, and she wishes it did, surprise her that she thinks he's wondering about  
Lex.

"You guys are really close," she murmurs, and Clark cracks a smile at that.

He rolls his eyes before heaving a sigh and saying, "Yes, we are. And I swear, I've already  
heard all the jokes."

She can't help it. The grin comes on its own. "Jokes? _Still_?"

None of this is about her, she knows. No matter how kind Clark is to her, it's always going to  
come with the trappings of a disclaimer: Lex asked me, Lex wants me, Lex says we should. It  
will never be Clark and Helen friends for friends' sake. It will always be Clark and Helen, since  
Lex is in between.

Clark blushes. "Yeah, still. That's not the point, though." He flashes an encouraging expression.  
"Want to come over for dinner?"

She's starting to get this. Maybe they haven't even figured it out yet.

"Clark, I'm not sure - "

" _Please_?" he asks her sincerely, and it's sincerely for Lex. "To quote Lex, if I fail in my  
mission to cheer you up, he's going to take me to a museum opening or an art gallery or make  
me watch Alexander the Great documentaries with him." Clark looks at her, eyes big and  
doleful. "You don't want that to happen to me, do you, Dr. Bryce?"

But it's so terribly clear to her now. She can't believe it's taken her this long.

It's totally hollow, but she can't help but laugh. "No, Clark, I don't."

Clark grins, and it barely hides the ugly grief underneath. "Perfect! I really think Lex wants us  
to get along."

That just figures, she thinks with unnatural detachment: the first time she truly loves someone in  
an adult way, he would already be involved with someone else.

The really sick part, Lex probably doesn't know that Clark's in love with him. Mostly because  
Clark is sixteen and male and there are all those annoying _laws_ about sodomy and statutory  
rape and contributing to the delinquency of a minor in Kansas. Mostly because Lex doesn't let  
himself think that way about Clark. Mostly because Helen thinks she knows that Lex imagines  
it can never happen, that it could never be. Clark is always talked about in broad, affectionate  
tones, with a sort of reverence that tells her that he thinks Clark's Too Good, Too Far Away.

When really, Clark is right there, always, just in arms reach.

When really, Clark is right there, begging to be touched.

She can't be angry at all, betrayed or feel used because it's all been unintentional, not some  
decision or a series of actions. Just a natural, organic progression that went from first meetings  
to smiles over coffee, phone calls and intimacy. Till it blooms into comfortable _belonging_  
regardless of location, and teasing about trig tests and taping television shows for one another  
without the commercial breaks. That's true love.

Lex has a boyfriend and he doesn't even know it.

* * *

On Wednesday night, Lex gets home, and slips in between the covers without a word. He just  
presses his face into her hair and wraps his arms around her waist, breathing in deeply and  
slipping out of consciousness, exhausted.

Helen lays there for a long time and thinks.

This won't last forever, she knows, because Lex is a smart guy.

One day, one slip, and Clark will reveal himself: he'll let his eyes linger too long or make a  
comment about something or trip and fall on Lex's face. All of these are feasible. All of these  
can happen. All of these, Helen realizes with a thud, _will_.

It's not unfair, it's not even fate, or destiny, or karma.

It's as if Clark and Lex have already happened, and the world just hasn't picked up on it yet.  
Like the water temperature is rising by degrees, and everyone needs to hurry the hell up and  
realize before they're boiled alive, because if they're still idling by the time Lex or Clark or both  
of them figure it out, it's everyone for themselves. And Helen sees faces: a small, perky blonde  
girl who is always asking everyone questions, a pretty but bland brunette from the Talon, and  
herself, and they're all just treading water, waiting it out, hoping that this isn't actually happening,  
when really, all of them must already know. Somewhere, deep down inside, they must already  
know.

She shouldn't have been there to begin with.

She suddenly feels like the other woman, the interloper, and it's all so horribly wrong.

It's just that she's been lying to herself, pretending and making up reasons to stay.

Because if she can convince herself that having to get used to one another, when Clark already  
fits like a pair of gloves, or that the way Clark's eyes linger just a moment to long is all in her  
mind, or how Lex seems to think Clark's the best person in the world is simply friendly affection  
then it's okay.

She pulls away, sits by the side of the bed, watches Lex sleep. She thinks about all the things  
he's asked her to do.

And she remembers knowing that it was going to end, that she was going to crash and burn.  
She remembers thinking that Lex made it romantic.

Lex is going to figure it out someday soon, and there's no reason to be in a rush for a broken  
heart.

She remembers it all, and tells herself that it's okay because she'll get out in time. She won't be  
burned.

She'll recognize all the signs, and run before she loses control.

Yeah. Helen understands Lex, understands him more than she wants to.

* * *

  



	2. Uneventual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Occam's Razor never has applied to Smallville.

The thing about everything being eventual is a load of absolute shit because Helen is watching Lex sputter - and really, there's no other word for what he's doing - around her room and frowning at everything. Not three weeks ago, she remembers watching Lex sleep, collapsed in bed after an exhausting day in Metropolis and thinking that very, very soon, everything would fall apart.

Everything did - but in  _just_  the right way.

She would laugh if it didn't hurt so badly to move that much and really, she's pretty sure that Lex would have some sort of mental implosion if she did.

She feels just as fragile as Lex is treating her, so she supposes that it all works out - for now.

She intends on bouncing back, returning to normal, and not crying at night eventually.

Just as soon as she can look into a room with shadows and not see Paul waiting for her in corners. Just as soon as Lex doesn't  _have to be there_  when she goes to bed. Just as soon as she has full mobility of her arm again. Just as soon as she can go back to work and not want to vomit every time she is near the pathology lab. Just as soon as all of this disappears into a comfortable fog of forgetting.

There's a medical term for it, she's sure, she's just...fuzzy right now.

"Helen?" Lex says gently, taking a few steps closer. He is still wearing his shirt from work, the sleeves rolled up. His watch flashes silver against his wrist and she can't take her eyes off of it to look at his face. "Helen?" he asks, so softly.

She doesn't look up but she says, "I'm tired, Lex."

Helen feels him nod and then feels his hands, those same hands that she remembers very, very distantly stroking her hair and brushing her cheek when everything was so dark and cold. He is pulling the sheets higher, up around her shoulders.

"Don't go," she says. This is important.

"I'm not going to go anywhere," he answers, but he disappears long enough for her to hear the sound of his shoes falling to the floor and his belt being discarded. He climbs up on the bed behind her, slips under the covers, and doesn't put his arms around.

She doesn't know how he knows not to do it, but she is grateful that he doesn't.

She wants Lex here; but she can't be trapped.

Lex lets her pretend to sleep until nearly eleven. Then she turns around and cries into his shoulder until everything fades.

* * *

The fourth day After, Clark comes to visit her.

More specifically, Clark comes to talk to Lex and sees her in the den where she and Lex settled on letting her stay during the daytime. Lex has issues with Helen being out of bed; Helen claims that unless he wants his girlfriend's ass to be bruised from total inactivity, he's going to need to suck it up.

She hears them, because it's an old building and sound echoes.

"How is she?" Clark asks, nervous, scared and young.

Helen cannot help but to think about his blood, his plasma, his fucked-up mitochondria. And at the same time, she thinks of a blue-lit room and an enormous image of him on the wall, a temple to curiosity. "What  _is_  this, Lex?" she asked. "I want to figure some things out," Lex admitted. "For science?" she asked, mystified, horrified, and intrigued all at the same time; who needed skeletons when you could have plasma screens? "For lots of reasons," Lex said quietly.

She remembers thinking, this is it, this is the end. This is when he realizes that he's already dating Clark and leaves me.

She also remembers amending that with, this is when he realizes that he is stalking  _and_  dating Clark and says goodbye.

It didn't happen, and Clark and Lex are climbing the stairs up to the third-floor den where she is sitting in a large, soft chaise, reading a book. Her fingers slip between two pages and she can feel the cheap paper against the new, raw skin on her hands. There was glass, and splintered wood, she remembers feeling her palms press against the floor and pain blossoming, so much more concentrated and clear than what was happening. She remembers thinking that she needed help, needed Lex, needed someone or anyone or  _more time_  - to think, to do something about it. But she's not there anymore and her fingers are slipping between two pages to feel the cheap paper against skin. She is reading  _The Hundred Secret Senses_  again, and she wonders if she is maybe trying to tell Lex something she isn't brave or stupid enough to say out loud.

"She's improving," Lex says carefully, and Helen hopes that she doesn't turn that into a lie.

There's a silence and only one set of footsteps moves until they stop as well. "Clark?" Lex asks.

"I - I'm really sorry, Lex," Clark says.

Helen can imagine him in the hallway, wringing his hands and looking down at his feet, guiltyridden. Lex told her Clark has a hero complex. She wants to know if Clark would still feel guilty after he saw the room with the locked door. She wants to know if he'd still feel bad if he knew how much research she's done on him, her own file. She and Lex are perfect partners in crime, and that is why it will never work out. Crashing and burning is an eventuality.

Lex makes a sound like sighing. "This Messiah complex of yours is growing." When Clark doesn't say anything, Lex adds, "It's not your fault, Clark."

"I should have been there," Clark says, voice tight.

Helen can't imagine why Clark thinks he should save the world, but thinks it probably has a lot to do with the weird things that happen in Smallville and everyone pretends doesn't, that it is tied to why the Kents seemed so terrified by a child who was sick, just sick, and refused to take him to the hospital. It probably has a lot to do with Lex's room, and the blue shadows that hide there.

Lex starts walking again, and he sounds close to annoyed. "You can't save everyone."

Helen hears Clark scramble to catch up as he says, "I should have saved Dr. Bryce. She - "

Lex pauses, and they are very close to the door now, because she can breathe and hear them at the same time again. "She what, Clark?"

She hears it in his voice: curiosity and desire and a thousand different degrees of hope. Lex wants Clark to tell him things, all things.

"She's important to you," Clark murmurs.

Lex doesn't sound disappointed, and Helen wonders at how much effort that takes. There is a long pause before she hears the door open.

So she pastes a smile on her face and breathes in and out and doesn't ask why his blood cells are the most bizarre thing she's ever seen in her life.

She feels her raw fingertips slipping between the pages of a book or a message or a secret, and makes herself do this thing.

* * *

Thursday morning she asks if she can go somewhere.

Lex looks at her over coffee with a curious expression. "Go somewhere?"

She nods and wraps her nightshirt around her index finger. It is worn cotton and feels like college. She remembers thinking that Lex would hate it and buy her something new - until the third day she lived at the manor and found out that Lex slept in a Princeton fencing t-shirt and pajama pants older than her shirt. She remembers thinking that she loved him, right then, more than she thought she ever would.

He sets down his mug and folds the newspaper, never breaking eye-contact. "Where, exactly?" he asks.

She shrugs. "Not here," she tells him. Helen looks around and sees the sunlight streaming into the first-floor library. Yellow has been splashed across every dusty volume on the shelf, and puddles on the floor near her toes; she sticks her feet in the light, and feels warm. Just a pinpoint, but it's a start.

Lex is quiet and she thinks that he is going to say no until she hears him digging around for his cell phone.

"Yes," he says, reaching across the table to twine his fingers with her own. "I want the car brought around to the front and the jet waiting. Have Hope move my appointments back two days." She hears a murmur on the other end of the line and then Lex smiles before he hangs up.

"Where, exactly?" she parrots him, and feels a smile on his face.

There are trade-offs, throwbacks, downsides, and disappointments: cancelled dates and moods, bad days on the stock market and nights where she will wait in the bed until she sees morning light before she hears Lex again, in his office, saving his own version of the universe.

But there is so much good to be had.

She has to remind herself that this will end, too. That Lex isn't meant to stay here, or if he does, it isn't because of herself.

But he says, "Have you ever been to Montana?" and then asks, "Do you like horses?" she can't quite make herself believe these things.

His hand is warm against her palm and Helen thinks that this might be unintentional, too.

* * *

Friday morning her arm doesn't hurt anymore so she leaves Lex in bed to go out on the deck.

She watches the horses run and thinks about what Lex told her.

"I bought this back a few months ago. It was my mother's years ago. She loved it here."

He didn't say that his mother would have liked her. Helen figures this is because as morally corrupt as Lex might think he is capable of being, he won't do anything to blaspheme his mother. Lillian Luthor would have known the truth, Helen realizes with a smirk; she would have said to Lex, "She's nice, Lex, but all wrong for you. I only want you to be happy, darling."

And Lillian would have been right.

Knowing this, Helen wonders what she's doing here, and why she's doing it. She remembers telling herself that it was all a matter of time before Lex and Clark saw the light and she was a thing of the past. But that's harder to believe when she wakes up next to him, curled up in old clothes and smelling Montana and  _distance_  between herself and Smallville.

She's not letting herself hope for this because it would be dumb.

"It's good to see you up and about," she hears, and turns around to see Lex leaning against the opened French door, a lazy, heavy-lidded smile on his face.

She's not letting herself hope because it would hurt too much to have to let go all over again.

* * *

Monday afternoon she stops by the Talon to get some coffee and away from Lex's watchful eye.

"You're always on business trips!" she accused him.

"I can telecommute," he said breezily. "I actually get environmental incentives for letting my employees do so." She stared. "I'm being a role model, Helen."

He was stalking, that's what he was doing, she thinks in retrospect. But it's a heavy, smileinducing, reassuring sort of stalking that has her ducking out from his presence only to long for it very, very quickly.

So she is grateful when she feels Lex sliding into the empty chair next to her own, and the sweet smile of a girl's crush bloom on Lana's face as she says, "Lex!"

Helen looks at him from the corner of her eye and sees Lex smiling politely back. "Lana. I see you're the reason she escaped this afternoon."

Lana flushes dark red and Helen laughs.

It's not so much, she thinks, about everything that can go wrong anymore.

* * *

So she is not surprised when he asks her and gives her the ring. She is even less surprised when she says "Yes" and they kiss.

She goes to the Talon a week later and feels Clark's eyes on her back. Helen doesn't turn back, and she doesn't apologize. It's her happiness to take if Lex thinks it's his happiness to offer. She can only be so good. She is getting ready to leave and go back to work again for the first time in a month when Clark stops her with a desperate expression and, "Wait, Dr. Bryce!"

Helen debates whether or not to run.

She sits down and says, "Hello, Clark." The ring is heavy on her hand and she wants it to act like a soldier.

He doesn't look at her face at all, just at her hand with an unblinking stare. Clark is not trying at all today, and what he's feeling is written all across his face. Helen wonders how he makes it through a day without everyone knowing his secret, without half the town just shaking their heads and saying, "Well, there's always a few funny ones in the crowd." But what she wonders most and most frequently about is how Clark manages to hide this from Lex.

"So," Clark starts, his voice painfully low, "you two are engaged, huh?"

"Yes," she answers after a moment. "Lex asked me - "

"He told me already," Clark says flatly.

She wonders that conversation was like.

But she can't dwell on it. Joy is fragile.

Finally, he says, "Do you think you'll make him happy, Dr. Bryce?"

Helen is still and watches him swallow hard. He is looking at the ground. And if he looks up, Helen knows what she will see there: a measured desperation she recognizes from herself. Because Clark knows as well as Helen does that she cannot save him from this, cannot give him hope or an excuse or an open door. Clark had his chances, but Clark has his secrets and he made a decision a long time ago without saying any words at all.

Now, Lex has, too.

"I can try," she says honestly. "That's the most any of us can do, Clark."

He looks up sharply, eyes dark with something she can't quite put her finger on: like grief and longing and the same fractured hopefulness in Lex's gaze.

She is grieving, too. Because this was never supposed to happen, never come to pass. She was temporary and she let herself be okay with that because she loved him, for what that was worth, and she didn't want to move again. Helen hates herself, too, because it would be *so easy* to give Lex the happiness he doesn't think he can afford, but she won't because she wants it for herself. Is it selfish and hateful or social Darwinism, she doesn't know and can't care.

It's not a word, either, but uneventual springs to mind and she strokes her ring. "Is that what you wanted, Clark?" she asks, almost gentle.

He looks at her with the worst sort of indecision before he says, "Yeah, I guess," and starts to go.

* * *

Sometimes, she has moments of clarity, like she knows that Lex wants to love her more than he actually does.

But intent, she's finding as he mouths the curve of her shoulder, strokes the length of her thigh, counts for more than people like to think.

"Tell me what you want," he whispers to her, like a prayer.

Helen thinks of temples, thinks of blue, thinks of gods and monsters and a life spent in halves. Lex deserves more than that.

But she sinks her nails into his back and arches herself into him like she is throwing herself down as a sacrifice.

"Just you," she whispers.

And means it.


End file.
